


The Future Is Tekon (The Heartfire Girl)

by squills



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-24
Updated: 2008-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squills/pseuds/squills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder Suresh won't take "no" for an answer from a special, and discovers that knowledge of the future is not always a good thing - especially when Sylar is involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future Is Tekon (The Heartfire Girl)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at my LiveJournal account: [](http://squills.livejournal.com/profile)[**squills**](http://squills.livejournal.com/)
> 
> **Warnings:** Non-graphic character deaths. Hinted Mylar, but nothing even vaguely explicit.
> 
> This fic was started back in August 2008 but it just sat there.  However, it's a vague enough future that it doesn't really clash with canon. The title is a line from an Alfred Bester story; I have no idea what it means, but that kind of mirrors Mohinder's reactions to what happens to him in the story. This fic is also written for my [](http://community.livejournal.com/mission_insane/profile)[**mission_insane**](http://community.livejournal.com/mission_insane/)  prompt table, "[Master Plots / Maturation](http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/tobias_plots.htm)"(because, should Mohinder make the right decisions, both he and Sylar will end up there). X-posted there, [](http://community.livejournal.com/mylar_fic/profile)[**mylar_fic**](http://community.livejournal.com/mylar_fic/) , [](http://community.livejournal.com/heroes_fic/profile)[**heroes_fic**](http://community.livejournal.com/heroes_fic/).

_Mohinder Suresh is dead._

A thin figure, head cocked inquisitively to one side, looms over him as his eyes stare emptily towards the heavens. "You really thought you could take me on my own turf, professor? You weren't nearly as smart as I'd thought you were. It's a pity. You showed such promise."

A faint sound, somewhere between a moan and a gag, comes from the other side of the room, where a figure lies in a puddle of long dark hair and sticky blood.

Sylar turns and smiles slowly. "I almost forgot about you." As he walks in her direction, he flexes his fingers.

* * * * * * *

_Mohinder Suresh looked up from his computer screen with a slight sigh._ In the past year, he'd been forced to admit that maybe, just maybe, old age was beginning to ghost into his joints. As always, though, his daughter's appearance momentarily blinded him to any other thought.

He'd intended to call her Shanti, but by the time she was two, it was natural to say Anna instead. His wife never explained why she insisted on that as a middle name – everyone had their own history that they wished to honor, for their own reasons – but it's obvious that this child who Louise had given birth to is mentally a carbon copy of her, despite having his darker skin and curly hair. And he's content with that – he wants his only child to follow her own dreams, not toil for years in hope of earning her forebears' approval, as he did. There had even been a point in time when he'd tried to convince her to take on her mother's name, for safety's sake, and in the hopes that she might completely escape the family curse. But she'd thrown her head back and announced that although she might be part Lefebvre, she was all Suresh.

She sat the violin case down on a rare clear bit of countertop and walked over to him, golden and glowing. She kissed the top of his head and glanced at the hologram visual floating in front of him.

"Papa, why don't you just give in and get an optic implant? It would be so much easier for you to view things without trying to peer at them through those bifocals."

"I am an old dog, my dear. The time for learning new tricks is long past."

Her face suddenly went serious. "You know, Papa, if they wanted to try to control you, they could find a way that didn't involve the 'net to do it. There's no need to make life harder on yourself just because of worries about the past."

Mohinder smiled despite himself. The brutal practicality was her mother's, and he blessed her for it.

"Besides, if anyone tried anything, uncle Gust would put a stop to it, wouldn't you?" The question was directed towards the back of the room. Mohinder turned stiffly to look at the corner where August Olivero, PhD, sat behind a mountainous book, an ancient atlas of some sort, by the looks of it.

"Your faith in me is flattering, but even I have my limits."

Anna rolled her eyes and flounced over to give him the same greeting she'd given her father. He half-scowled up at her, a reaction that had long since stopped being genuine and become an affectionate game.

"At any rate, I only stopped by here to remind you that tonight I have a late practice, and afterwards we're going out to eat, so it might be midnight before I get home, and I will have Michel bring me home instead of walking alone, so don't wait up or worry, all right?"

Mohinder smiled again at her retreating back. "What will I do when you graduate and head off to the conservatory?"

The look she threw at him was almost sad. "Probably exactly what you do now."

"That's nice," he said as the door slid shut behind her. "My own daughter thinks I'm ready to be put out to pasture."

"No. Your own daughter thinks you think you're ready to be put out to pasture."

Mohinder let out an exasperated sigh, but as always, the discussion wasn't over.

"Why do you insist on living in the past?"

Mohinder's eyes automatically strayed to a family portrait on the wall, but he didn't answer.

"And why do you let me stay?"

Mohinder jerked slightly, out of surprise at the question and because of the odd tone in which it was asked. "You did me a service that I can never repay." He looked at the picture again, and at an older one next to it: Louise, still alive, still smiling. "If it weren't for you, I would have lost both of them. You didn't have to go back to save my child, but you did. That's something for which I will always owe you a debt."

"You repaid it long ago. You helped me hide. Came up with an evidence trail to support this identity well enough that I could live without always having to look over my shoulder. But you've never once told me that the crisis is past, and that I should get out and leave you to your own life in peace. Why?"

Mohinder stared through his computer screen at the calm blue wall behind it. Why? Because he liked having someone around who had enough abilities to protect his daughter in ways that he couldn't? Too brutal, and not the entire picture. Because he'd just plain gotten used to it? Technically true, but again...he'd realized long ago, that wasn't the entire reason. Because he couldn't imagine life any other way?

True, but something he didn't know that he could ever speak aloud. Something that opened up too many other questions whose answers he wasn't sure he could face.

He suddenly needed to head off this inquisition. "Why do you stay?" he said abruptly.

There was a long silence. "I suppose I've grown accustomed to your face."

Mohinder smiled but then just stared at the stylus in his hand.

"What?"

"I've got a better cliché for you. 'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer'."

The other man chuckled and closed his book. Soft footsteps crossed the room to his side.

"So that's it? Surveillance? You need to know exactly what I'm doing, every minute of every day?"

Mohinder sat for a moment, lips parted. Then he once again sidestepped the question and the undertones he knew it carried, to say, "Maybe Anna's right. I'm too set in my ways. I've clung to this life to try to give my daughter some equilibrium, to try to heal myself. It's quiet, it's uneventful...it's safe. And now this life is all I know."

"Don't you have any...regrets?"

"What does it matter? It's too late to change the way things are now."

Fingertips touched his neck and he jumped as if he'd been shocked. They withdrew, but a few seconds later, touched him again. He looked upwards and wondered what the real face underneath that optical illusion looked like now. He hadn't seen it in so many years.

"It's never too late, Mohinder. Not until you're in your grave."

He swallowed, and looked up at that face again.

* * * * * * *

_Mohinder Suresh was backed into a corner, hands outstretched, trying to reason with Peter one final time._

"It's you! You're the cause of all this!"

"Peter. Peter, I was only trying to help. I thought –"

"You thought. Just like my mother, and Linderman, and all the rest – you thought you knew better than everyone else, and you could meddle in people's lives and shape everything to your liking. Never mind what the consequences might be, if everything didn't go according to plan. You didn't think!"

"Peter –"

"I'm sorry, Suresh. But this has to be done. It's you, or the entire human race."

"Peter... Peter, no..."

The tall dark figure in front of him smiled, with a coldness that made him shudder like a child. "No, Suresh. I'm not going to kill you. Not now. I have to go back and do it before you figure things out, before you share what you learned with everyone. That's the only way to stop it all. By doing it before this all began."

"Peter –"

There was nothing there but empty air.

Mohinder leaned against the table, his hands shaking as he tried to support his weight. He listened to his heart thudding in his ears, marking off the moments as they passed. He wondered how long it would be before these moments had never even occurred.

* * * * * * *

_Mohinder Suresh is dead._

A small figure clings to him, crying, trying to turn his face so that she can see it. Then there are hands on hers, awkward but gentle, pulling her away.

"Molly. It is Molly, isn't it?"

She looks up into his face but the sobs are so thick, she can't say anything.

"How did this happen?"

She sucks in a choking breath but no words make it out.

"It's okay. Just think. Can you do that? Think about it. Slowly. How did this happen? Who did this? Think about what their face looked like.”

She doesn’t want to think about it, but it all comes up so easy in her mind: _the man at the door, the argument he had with Mohinder, the gun he had in his hand, he didn’t know she was there, she hid behind the cabinet just like Mohinder had warned her to if anything bad happened, the gunshots, two, three, four, the glimpse she saw of him when he looked around the lab before leaving, angry and mean behind the thick glasses he wore –_

This man’s hands tighten on her arms and distract her. She hears a noise and cranes her neck backwards as far as she can. The bogeyman. He’s standing in the doorway, looking at Mohinder with a funny look on his face.

“This is all your fault,” the man holding on to her shouts. “If you hadn’t gone off half-cocked, he never would have been pushed into coming here –”

“Where is he, Petrelli?” Somehow, the bogeyman’s quiet voice manages to drown out the other man’s shouts.

“How should I know?” the man yells back.

The bogeyman stares at them for a long long time before he walks back out the door. Molly hiccups and looks down, and the sobs start again. “Mohinder...”

The man turns her away from Mohinder again. “It’s going to be okay, Molly,” he says, and she knows he’s lying.

“Can you save him?” she asks. “Can you save him?”

He puts his arms around her back and won’t look at her face. “We need to get you somewhere safe.”

As her head collapses onto his shoulder, she cries and cries and cries.

* * * * * * *

Mohinder Suresh gasped in a breath of air. His heartbeat was pounding in his temples, which felt like they might explode. He leaned forward over the stained kitchen table he was seated at, and shakily looked at the woman sitting across from him. She glared back, as sour as she’d been when he’d pounded on her door and refused to take _“leave me alone”_ for an answer.

“Did you enjoy it?”

Mohinder breathed unevenly and concentrated on his heart, wishing it would slow down. “That was…what was it? Was it a dream?”

“It was a little demonstration.  It was your future.” The woman shifted her bulk in the chair. “All of them. It all depends on the choices you make. Go to the store, or wait till tomorrow. Get milk, or get orange juice. Every choice makes things a little different. I can show you all those differences. That’s my knack. I’m the heartfire girl.”

Mohinder spread his palms out, feeling the rough surface of the tabletop, trying to find something to anchor his mind with. He stared at his ragged fingernails and thought. “So...those were all possible paths that my life could take?”

“You’re a brilliant one, doc.”

“But...” He tried to wipe the vision of his own dead face - his own dead faces - from his mind, and looked up at her again. “How do I know which decisions will take me down which path?”

“You don’t.” Her lips curled. “You could wind up in any one of these places. But how do you make the right decisions? How do you know you’re headed to a decent place? You don’t. You just know all these futures are out there, waiting to crash on you. That’s my gift to you, doc. A little thank-you present, to make you think twice before sticking your nose into other people’s business again.” She shoved the chair backwards and shuffled out of the room.

Mohinder stared off into space, his eyes wide and distant.

* * * * * * *

A few blocks away, Sylar leaned against the limestone graveyard wall and listened for the approach of familiar footsteps in the distance. Good Doctor Suresh had turned out to be far more slippery and harder to track down than he’d expected. If only he had teleportation, or mind-reading, or... He squashed down wishes with the reminder that those things were out there, waiting for him to take them. And he would, eventually. But for now, he had to concentrate on the galling fact that it would be far, far easier to accomplish the next step in his evolution if he could get Mohinder Suresh on his side, just for a while.

He touched the wall when he heard Mohinder coming, gauging the timing so that he could lift himself over it and hit the outer sidewalk just before his prey rounded the corner. He smiled, just a bit, but Mohinder barely even had the good graces to look surprised – he just pursed his lips and shoved rudely past Sylar.

“I thought I told you to rot in hell.”

“You did. But it’s hard to take a gutter threat seriously when it’s delivered in such a cultured voice.”

Mohinder glanced over his shoulder incredulously. Sylar trailed after him.

“So who were you visiting? And what can they do? Is it anything particularly special? Is it worth my time to take a detour to their house?”

“You’re not going back there.”

“Give me one good reason not to.”

“How about this.” Mohinder came to a halt. “You won’t go back there and murder someone who’s never done anything to you, because you don’t want the rest of humanity to curse your very existence and think of you as the most worthless, selfish, inhuman monster ever unleashed upon this earth. How is that? Is that cultured enough of an insult for you?”

Sylar walked several steps past him before stopping, and it was several more heartbeats before he turned around. “She can’t be that innocent. You seemed fairly upset when you left her house.”

Mohinder shrugged his satchel upwards on his shoulder and shoved past Sylar again.

Sylar easily fell into step beside him. “We can accomplish a lot more together than we can separately, Mohinder.”

“What...” Mohinder shook his head. “What is this continued delusion you have, that I’d be willing to work on _anything_ with you? Quite apart from the horror you’ve brought into my life, I know damned well that whatever you’re up to, it’s only something that will benefit you.”

“I’ve got a name,” Sylar said. “A researcher. Another geneticist. She used to work for Yamagato Industries in Japan, and she went from there to the Company’s ranks. Then she left. Disappeared. But I know where she’s hiding.”

Mohinder laughed bitterly. “Of course you do. What’s her name?”

“Louise Lefebvre.”

“Louise...” Mohinder’s gaze was incredulous again, but this time, it also seemed a little frightened. Sylar was intrigued.

“Do you know her?”

“No... I don’t know.” Mohinder shook his head, and suddenly seemed to have forgotten Sylar was even standing there. Sylar realized he didn’t appreciate being the least-interesting thing in the vicinity.

“She’s obviously been involved in whatever Nakamura and his cronies were cooking up. And from the looks of things, she wasn’t happy about it – she got out while she still could. She could be the key to answering the last parts of your father’s genetic puzzle. _If_ we can get to her before anyone else does.”

“And how, exactly, do you know where she is?”

Sylar smiled in the most infuriating way he knew how. “We all have our little secrets, professor.” Instead of looking annoyed, Mohinder looked uneasy. His eyes drifted away again, as if he was considering something, weighing factors, and Sylar didn’t know what those factors were, so he didn’t know how to counter them. He seethed at his impotence.

Mohinder suddenly looked back at him, and a decision was in his eyes.


End file.
